Phnom Penh airlift

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33778, 26 February 1975, Page 1

Phnom Penh airlift

I (N Z Presi 4«irn—Copyrtohl SAIGON, February 25. . The United State? collected hundreds of tons of rice today for the start of a huge, Berlin-style airlift of food to the besieged Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. American commercial jets I will fly about 15 supply I flights a day from Saigon to ' Phnom Penh, according to i United States Embassy j sources, in a desperate attempt to save the refugeeswollen city. The sources said that the

11 month-long airlift would ■ carry 583 tons of rice daily | ! to Phnom Penh, providing 'leach of the city’a residents ’ with a (lb a day, a bare I subsistence level. j; The airlift of food, s scheduled to begin by Thurod day morning, will be in e addition to hundreds of tons -of ammunition and fuel already being flown daily on t United States planes to Cam>|bodia's beleaguered armed ?! forces. 1 In Washington, the State ’ Department said that the ’ Cambodian Government of President Lon Noi would collapse within two months without emergency aid from the United States. I Mr Phillip Habib, Assistant I Secretary of State for East 'Asian Affairs, called on the ’! United States Senate on ! Monday to approve President . Ford’s request for $222m in , emergency aid to Cambodia. , “It is not just the Government of Marshal Lon Nol," ! Mr Habib said. “No Govern- - ment could survive beyond a month or two.”